Religion Dispatches
…the evacuation zone—but offered no easy solution. * Almost a week after Hurricane Sandy I know the neighborhood much better than before. Sheens remained open throughout four days of no power and sold us batteries and cigarettes; they were expensive, but they were there. The owner of the Italian restaurant downstairs who lost five large freezers full of food when rising ground water swamped his basement loaned me his phone. At the bar of a French…
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…And nobody can deny the convenience of ready access to information, maps, phone numbers, calendars, and social satisfaction that our reliance on technology provides. Technology is a tool, right? It doesn’t change who we are, right? It doesn’t blind us—it reveals reality by connecting us and showing us the world via our screens… right? Look, I know that our new imaginative, mediated work is doing good. I know people can feel a real sense of empowe…
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…ily? Where is the goodness and justice of God for Marissa Alexander, the African-American woman who is presently serving a 20-year prison sentence for shooting a warning shot to ward off her abusive husband from attacking her? She “stood her ground,” shoots and kills no one, but gets 20 years in prison (we’re still waiting to see if Florida’s governor will commute her sentence or if this will remain a travesty of justice); Zimmerman shoots and in…
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…Nations, a case for the U.S or Israel attacking Iran, and a pitch for the phone ministry 1-888-RAPTURE. Apparently the UFO issue got onto Lindsey’s radar screen because of reports that United Nations is paying attention to it, as discussed here. Lindsey offers a mass of evidence (quite disturbing if true) claiming sightings by military personnel who witnessed UFOs disarming nuclear weapons. In Lindsey’s interpretation, such disarmament fits a sim…
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…the World Trade Center. How does an imam approach this? How do I, as an American and a Muslim, deal with what people claiming my religion did to us—New Yorkers, Americans, human beings? How do I explain that I was scared because my city was attacked, but I was also scared because people might blame me? I tried to rush down to help, but by the time I got further downtown there was too much smoke to go any further. People rushing in the opposite dir…
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…cross religion, science, and society. I reached out to Levinovitz over the phone to discuss organic food, birth control, alternative medicine, and the role of naturalness in explaining COVID-19. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. When did the concept of “natural” first grab your attention? When I was working on food I noticed that people often use “nature” and “natural” as their justification for whatever it was that they happe…
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…o-life, conservative state. Senator Crain’s office did not return repeated phone calls, but according to The Daily Beast, he “said the bill is simply a statement that Oklahoma is ‘pro-life.’” Senate Pro Tem Brian Bingman said much the same thing, according to Reuters, offering that “Oklahoma is a conservative pro-life state—we are proud to stand up for what we know is right.” Well, yes, it feels very good to be proud of things, doesn’t it? Might I…
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…e. As he told it, one day Frank and a partner “did statistics on Christian numbers” and decided that it was a huge market to tap into. According to Frank, in their first year alone (2008), they did over $250,000 in sales, and the J.D.T. line is only growing. In February the New York Times published R.M. Schneiderman’s article “Flock Is Now a Fight Team in Some Ministries” about the “growing number of evangelical churches that have embraced mixed m…
Read More…r in the United States. According to the Cremation Association of North America, the cremation rate rose from approximately fifteen percent of all deaths in 1985 to about a third as of 2006. And while solid numbers for Jewish cremation are lacking, anecdotal evidence suggests that the practice is firmly entrenched. A suburban Philadelphia cemetery owner estimates that cremations now total five percent of his business. The same percentage—this time…
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…ionships between individuals, but is more easily disseminated to a greater number of people. We experience AI as a crisis because, like the rabbis of the Talmud, we actually have conflicting needs and desires. We crave the efficiency of AI because it can save time and effort, helping us write emails, make phone calls, and recall and summarize information. At the same time, we’re seeking human connection when we do reach out, and AI fails to provid…
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